Decisions, decisions

Perfect Daughter has led me on a roller-coaster ride of emotions this week. Complete with nausea, headaches, fear and sometimes...elation. It is seat deposit time at the various law schools she wanted to go to. By various, I mean just that--you know how some people know just what they want to do and where they want to do it their whole life? (Aggies come to mind). Well, she didn't and doesn't. Ever. That's what happens when you are smart, beautiful, and um, manic?

SO, she called me on Thursday. "Mom, I've decided!," she said. I was humming "The Eyes of Texas" and had just sent her a boatload of info on the wonders of that great law school, so I was fairly sure she would pick my alma mater. Nope, she picked Cornell. WHAT? In upstate NEW YORK? Where they don't know how to make salsa? Are you kidding?

I was very, very nice. "That's so great honey. I can't wait to see what Ithaca is like". Then she started in on how great their program was, and all the opportunities in a small Ivy-league school and oh, by the way, it was going to be $200K (give or take) of debt. But that she "could handle it". That was the nauseous part of the roller-coaster. Those Yankees just weren't very free with the free money. In fact, there was no free money. Nada, nope, nyet.

Friday, I got the next call. "Mom, I just feel sick about the debt" (Ditto here!) She wondered what I thought about possibly sending in a seat deposit to a couple of other schools, just in case. Elation! "UT?", I asked. "Oh, OK, I'll keep them on the list, if you want" she said. I want? I hoped, I hoped. I started researching UT's law school with renewed optimism. (For the law school uninitiated, it's often referred to as "UTexas" which I find sort of cute. I mean, c'mon, there is only one UT!) . I talked to friends who had graduated from there, asking them to email or call Perfect Daughter. I got statistics on study abroad, employment after graduation, where to live. UT baby!

Saturday she called, in tears. "It's just too hard. I WANT to go to Cornell, but I can't afford it. I can afford UT, but I have GOT to get out of Texas, if only for three years. I LOVE William and Mary, but they aren't ranked high enough". Oh, that was a hard one. That was like when the roller coaster dips really fast and your stomach stays up on the crest. I wanted to fix it, but I couldn't. Instead, I said what any good Longhorn would, "Just choose UT".

If only it were that simple. Obey YOUR MOTHER. Somehow that doesn't work when they are 22 (or even, with her, when they are 2 1/2).

Monday morning....the phone rang with her personal ring. I stared at it. Good moms answer their daughter's special ring, right? So I did.

"I picked!" she sounded happy. Since in our last (several) conversations she had convinced herself (and tried to convince me) that $200K in education debt is completely do-able, I was steeling myself back towards Cornell. I hoped for UT, but I knew that unless they offered her full-tuition, they were off the table. Free, she would take them. Pay? Not so much. Anyway, I was completely surprised when she said,

"William and Mary".

She told me that after a long phone conversation with a dean at W&M that very morning, she got very excited about the opportunities for her in Williamsburg. Yes, it's not top 25, but it's the oldest law school in the country. Thomas Jefferson studied there. Virginia! Close to D.C. And the best part? Her debt load is such there (they have offered her a generous scholarship) that she might even graduate debt-free. The kicker was, to paraphrase Sally Field, "they liked her, they really liked her". At William and Mary, she isn't a number, she is "Perfect Daughter Herewegoagain" and they want her. She wants them too--who wouldn't?

Speaking of roller-coasters...there is one at the Busch Gardens in Williamsburg and I'm going to ride it when we drop off that law-student daughter of mine in August. CELEBRATE!

That is, if she doesn't change her mind.